Over the last few days at home, the boys had shot the video for 'Welcome to the Jungle,' and were now waiting for the video to circulate on Mtv. The day after the video was sent out- complete, and edited, we were back on the road with Mötley Crüe. For some reason, Izzy was being more protective- which made Slash and I wonder if he was on to us, but our paranoia wasn't strong enough to keep up from fooling around.

It had only been nine days; tonight we were in Boston, and they were heading out to adventure through the city before the show. They were either looking to stir up some trouble, or hoping to score some cheap- or better yet, free, drinks, drugs, and girls. Izzy was not having any part of the idea that I should be going with them.

"For the love of God, just stop arguing and let her come with us," Axl groaned, hanging his head off of the end of the couch.

"Stay out of it, Rose," Izzy snarled, staring at me. "I'm in charge of my sister; you can worry about everything else."

"Jesus, why don't you listen to Axl? I'm-"

"You're staying here, and that's final," my brother stated flatly.

"No, Izzy! I'm and adult, and I can go where ever I wa-"

"No, you are not. I don't care if you're an adult or not, you're safer here."

"Try to fuckin' stop me, you hard ass!" I challenged.

"I will block the damn door if I have to! I said no!"

"Fuck you! Kiss my fuckin' ass," I screamed as I stormed off of the bus, patting down my pockets for cigarettes, which, to my dismay, were not on me at the moment. With a groan, I dropped back against the bus, closing my eyes as I tried to calm down.

"You look like you could use one of these," Slash said, making me jump as he offered me his pack of Marlboro reds.

"You got that right," I grumbled, gratefully taking a cigarette, which he lit for me.

"What was that all about?"

"He's an asshole."

"I figured that would be your answer... Now, what's the initial cause?" he asked, a smart ass tone clinging to his words.

"I- he thinks that I should stay on the bus. I told him that I wanted to go hang out with you guys and he flipped."

"Doesn't he usually make you go with us?"

"Yeah, so what the fuck changed?" I asked exasperatedly.

"Eh, maybe he's crazy," he said with a laugh.

I shot him a glare, and he quieted down, but there was still pure amusement in his eyes. His silence ended once we heard Izzy and Axl begin to argue, as their fighting would 'camouflage' our conversation.

"Do you think he's guessing?"

"No; he would have said something by now," I said, brushing a fallen eyelash off of his cheek.

"Then why the fuck is he being so paranoid about you?"

"I have no idea. Did he say anything to you?"

"Just that he was worried about you getting into more trouble. He's worried that Adler's gonna influence you," he guessed.

"He needs to worry about himself," I mumbled, seeing Slash's body language change out of the corner of my eye. "What was that?"

"What?"

"That," I said, motioning to him. "You just got weird."

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"You just moved and got all... tense."

"I'm not tense."

"I can feel it, Slash. What do you know?"

"Nothing. Why are you being all suspicious all of a sudden?"

"I don't know... you just," I thought for a moment, hoping to find the right word. "Something's off. What are you not telling me about him?"

"Let's just say that he's not working on a clean slate," he mumbled, blowing his cigarette smoke over his shoulder.

"Meaning?"

"He'll tell you when he's ready."

"Whatever, I guess. God, he's such an ass!"

Slash nodded sympathetically, staring at me as I watched the grey clouds move through the sky.

"I'm not going back on that bus," I muttered.

"Then don't."

"But I don't know what else to do," I said, scuffing my boot on the concrete.

"Hm... C'mon, I have in interview in about twenty minutes if you wanna get loose." He took a step and lightly tugged on my sleeve, hoping that I would follow him. "Your brother is smothering you; get free."

"Good enough for me," I said, taking another drag from my cigarette as I began to follow him. "What's it for?"

"I don't remember. Some magazine or something, I think."

"Cool." I tossed my cigarette butt on the concrete and grounded it out with my heel, falling in step with Slash.

"Yeah."

"I thought you hated interviews?"

"I do, but now you're with me. Plus, I have this," he said, holding up a small bottle of whiskey.

"Ah, there you go."

"Yeah, that'll do it," he mumbled, taking my hand in his as we walked down the street.

°°°°°°

I wasn't sure if Slash was too drunk to know what he was doing or saying, but his interview was falling apart at the seams. He kept giving shitty answers that were irrelevant to the questions he was being asked, and seemed like he could barely stand up on his own.

I could only feel bad for the interviewer; she was a cute girl with long, dark hair, like mine,and a fairly pretty . Every now and then, she'd lick a cherry red tootsie pop when she waited for Slash's answers, revealing nothing but patience for the shy, drunk man in front of her. Just as the interview ended and the cameras were about to be turned off, he took the candy from her, and kissed her- like he would have kissed me.

"Are you serious?" I asked as he walked towards me, the interviewer's tootsie pop hanging from his mouth, a goofy smile on his face.

"What?"

"Did you really just make out with her in front of me?"

"Yeah," he said with a shrug. "Would you have preferred that I did it when you weren't here?" he asked jokingly, slurring his speech slightly.

"That was a little shitty, don't you think?"

"It's not a big deal, Carolina."

"To you..."

"Why are you makin' somethin' out of this?"

"Because it is something to me."

"Carolina, it was just a ki-"

"It was not just a kiss, it was tongue and all, and I don't appreciate you lying about it," I said simply.

"Oh my god, please don't start bein' a drama queen. We already have Axl for that, thank you very much," he mumbled, leaning in to kiss me.

I shoved him back, getting angry that he was acting like it was no big deal- like he had done nothing wrong.

"Slash, it's been weeks of all of this!" I pointed out. "I can't deal with you 'pretending' to be single while we're on tour! Your idea of pretending seems to be acting like you really are."

"Well, Rae, I'm tryin' to sell it," he said, his eyes becoming hard and dark.

"Okay, then sell it, but that doesn't mean you have to fool around with every pretty girl that catches your eye," I stressed. "You wouldn't like it if I was doing this, would you?"

"You wouldn't," he said, narrowing his eyes.

"No, I wouldn't- because I know that it's a shit thing to do! What part of this are you not understanding?!"

"Just save it; why don't you just run back to Kelly or Tracii?"

"Fuck you! You are such a douche," I snapped, turning my back on him as I walked away.

"Prude."

"Really, that's the best you've got?" I asked over my shoulder.

"Maybe I should have just let you stay on the bus. This wouldn't be a problem," he grumbled, barely walking faster to catch up with me.

"That's fine; you know what, there's plenty of things you've probably done behind my back that I don't know about," I said bitterly. "I guess I should have expected it; you're a rock star that only cares about yourself, just like Axl."

He grabbed my arm in a firm grip, whirling me around so that I was face to face with him.

"I don't have to answer to you, Carolina; you're not my girlfriend," he spat. "You always have a reason to be upset with someone- maybe Izzy bringing you with us this time was a mistake."

"Maybe it was," I shouted, pulling my arm free and walking away from him.

Due to the fact that we were both quiet individuals, we weren't causing a scene until I yelled at him, but internally, it was we had gone off on each other.I had sensed this blow up, after all, any other time we've gotten along, it was only a matter of time before the time bomb went off, and while this could have been worse, the damage was done.

°°°°°°

I sat down at the table of the bus, hardly caring that Axl was there, cracking open a beer.

"You're not going to ask why I'm still here?" he asked, running his fingers down the page of what ever he was reading.

"Nope."

"Huh... where's Slash? he asked, finally looking up.

I shrugged and looked at my nails, which desperately needed to be painted.

"Is there a specific reason as to why you're getting drunk this early in the day? It's not very... you," he said, still waiting for a reply.

"I guess just don't want to think clearly for a while."

"What happened? Did someone hurt your delicate feelings?" Axl asked jokingly.

"Yeah, actually, he did," I said, not sure if I was genuinely upset, or just feeling bad for myself.

"Oh... who?"

"Slash."

"What happened?" he asked again, this time softer.

"He made out with his interviewer right in front of me; I wasn't even ten feet away... When I told him that that was a shitty thing to do, he got pissed and told me that he doesn't answer to me and that bringing me on tour with you guys was a bad idea."

"Well, in all fairness, you two aren't together anyway, so there's that."

"Not by a title," I muttered under my breath.

"Wait, what?"

"Nothing."

"Carolina Rae Isbell, what does that mean?"

"William Bruce Bailey, what do you think it means?"

"First of all, it's Rose, not Bailey. Second, I'm asking you because I don't want to guess wrong and look like an ass- but I have a feeling I already know."

I sighed and glared at him.

"Slash and I are- were- more or less dating... more dating, less of a titled couple... and what do you mean, Rose?"

"Long story, legal change- don't switch the subject."

"What ever," I said, not interested enough to ask more questions, hoping that the conversation would die before he asked more questions.

"I'm pretty sure that I knew it, but seriously?! You and Slash? What the fuck?" he asked, laughing like it was the funnies thing that he had ever heard.

"Thank you, glad you're amused," I said dryly, standing up to walk away.

"No, no, sit down!" he insisted. "I'm not makin' fun, I just didn't expect it to be true. I mean," he said leaning back as he raised his eyebrows, "none of us did."

"Yeah, that was the point," I said with a sign, sitting down again.

"I just- like- I mean, how the fuck did that happen?"

"Well, it all began when you decided to be an asshole-"

"Is it just me, or does every one of your stories start like this?" he mused.

"Do you want to know or not?!" He nodded. "Then shut up! Anyway, if we're going with this recent fling, it started because Slash felt bad about me being so down."

"Wait, wait, wait, what do you mean recent?'There was another time?"

I glared at him, signalling for him to shut up so I could speak.

"One story at a time, dude."

"Fine by me," he mumbled, raising his hands in surrender.

"You already know the old story."

"What, when you got sent back home?"

"Yeah, but what you didn't know, was that I had a crush on Slash back then- until he fucked me over. This time, when we went on our little beach date, things somehow clicked. I mean, at first, I was just pretending to have fun because I didn't want him to feel bad, but," I shook my head with a bitter smile, "I ended up having fun for real. It just kind of snowballed from there."

"You two hooked up that one night, didn't you?"

"Which night?"

"When you both came back all covered in hickeys- you were supposed to stay with Duff, remember? One of us switched the pairs," he said, letting out a deep chuckle.

"You?"

"Yeah; I thought it would piss you off, but now I see otherwise. Glad to be of service," he said with a proud nod.

"Thanks, I guess," I mumbled.

It was bittersweet to think about how different things were now, even that short amount of time since leaving Indiana.

As I continued to tell Axl the story, I was surprised to see that he was genuinely and intently listening. He let me vent, and even cracked open a new bottle of whiskey to split with me as he continued to listen and give advice.

Sure, when I walked on to the onto the bus, I was ready to punch him, but after talking and drinking together, I was totally fine with him being around.